Senate

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Daily Beast team stunned to learn that 'The Great Commission' remains in New Testament

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Here is a tip for reporters getting ready to tip-toe into coverage of stories that mix politics and centuries of Christian tradition.

Ready? There are times when it really helps to find out if Jesus — look for quotes in the New Testament — has addressed the issue that you are preparing to cover. This is especially true if you are considering an attack on a believer for defending a doctrine that is so central to Christianity that Bible passages about it have been given a unique name.

Like this one — “The Great Commission.” Here’s the quote from St. Matthew:

… Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

This brings us to that headline atop a short piece at The Daily Beast that keeps popping up in my email: “Newly Elected GOP Congressman Madison Cawthorn Has Tried to Convert Jews to Christianity.”

Yes, I know that there are debates about whether The Daily Beast is a proper source for hard-news coverage of serious topics, such as this one. And this “story” is actually a short piece of aggregated news from another source (click here for more Jewish Insider info).

It’s pretty easy to spot the buzz words in this overture, which argues that it is controversial for Christians to, well, take “The Great Commission” seriously — even in private life:

Madison Cawthorn, the North Carolina Republican who will become the youngest member of Congress in history, has admitted he tried to convert Jews and Muslims to Christianity.

In an interview with Jewish Insider, the 25-year-old, who came under fire for selfies he took at Hitler’s vacation retreat in Germany, claimed he had converted “several Muslims to Christ” and several “culturally Jewish people.”

“If all you are is friends with other Christians, then how are you ever going to lead somebody to Christ?” Cawthorn said. “If you’re not wanting to lead somebody to Christ, then you’re probably not really a Christian.”

It’s all about the word “admitted.”


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Podcast: Whoa! An old religion-beat story heated up the politics of Florida in 2020

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If you have followed the religion beat for several decades, you know that one of the most important trends has been the rising numbers of Hispanics — in Latin America and in the United States — who have converted to various forms of Protestantism. Check out this huge study by the Pew Research Center on the Pentecostal side of that trend.

But that’s just, you know, religion stuff. That kind of information isn’t really real until it affects something important — like politics. Right?

That brings us, once again, to the closer-than-expected 2020 showdown between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And, no doubt about it, the Washington Post political desk was impressed with the many hooks that GOP leaders used to reel in lots of Hispanic voters in Florida, which is supposed to be the ultimate multicultural swing state in American politics.

The story considered many different angles, from the usual stress on Cuban conservatism to talk of how immigrants from troubled lands in South America may have been swayed by warnings about “socialism” and images of mobs in major-city streets crashing into businesses and public buildings. The headline focused on one location: “Miami-Dade Hispanics helped sink Biden in Florida.”

There was, however, an important topic missing in this story. Want to guess what that was? This was — no surprise — one topic discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast. Click here to tune that in.

This political trend in Florida was so important that the Post produced another story about it: “Democrats lose ground with Latino voters in Florida and Texas, underscoring outreach missteps.” Readers who dug deep into this piece finally hit the following:

The Democratic Party’s failure in Florida to build a permanent campaign infrastructure to target Latinos left the Biden campaign at an early disadvantage, said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic pollster and strategist in the state. Amandi said he has warned Democratic leaders about this election cycle after election cycle, but has seen little change.

Although Cuban Americans, who tend to live in Miami-Dade County, have historically been Republican-leaning voters, their commitment to the GOP is not monolithic. Meanwhile, Puerto Ricans, whose numbers have grown in the state in recent years, are often assumed to be Democrats. That is not always the case among many evangelical Protestants and those who have recently moved from Puerto Rico.

If you missed that three-word phrase — “many evangelical Protestants” — there was this sentence later:


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Big religion ghost: Would a 'blue dog Democrat' win Tennessee's U.S. Senate race?

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What, pray tell, is a “blue dog Democrat” these days? If you look up the term online, you will find several variations on what characteristics define this politically endangered species.

Growing up as a Democrat in ‘70s Texas, I always heard that “blue dogs” — especially in West Texas — were progressives on economic issues and conservatives on culture. Many were “populist” Texans left over from the old New Deal coalition. Eventually, it was crucial that many “blue dogs” were Democrats who angered Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, we had a term for politicos who were conservative on economics and liberal on cultural and moral issues. They were “country club” Republicans.

Here is some language from the website of the current Blue Dog PAC :

The Blue Dog Coalition was created in 1995 to represent the commonsense, moderate voice of the Democratic Party, appealing to mainstream American values. The Blue Dogs are leaders in Congress who are committed to pursuing fiscally-responsible policies, ensuring a strong national defense, and transcending party lines to do what’s best for the American people.

Ah, what do the words “mainstream American values” mean in a land dominated by digital “progressives” and Donald Trump? Are there moral or religious implications there?

The term “blue dog” showed up in a recent New York Times feature about the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee, the Bible Belt state that I now call home. (Click here for a previous post on a related subject.) Here is the Times headline: “A Changing Tennessee Weighs a Moderate or Conservative for Senate.”

In Times terms, of course, this is a race between a “moderate” Democrat, that would be former governor Phil Bredesen, and the “hard-line” Republican, Rep. Marsha Blackburn. As always, the term “moderate” is a sign of editorial favor.


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Let's stop and ask a few questions about religion and that Republican romp

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Let's stop and ask a few questions about religion and that Republican romp

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: If you were working on the religion beat these days, especially if you were still new on the beat, wouldn't you welcome advice from someone who had excelled at this work at the highest levels for decades?

I recently had a long talk in New York City with Richard Ostling -- by all means review his bio here -- to ask if, along with his Religion Guy Q&A pieces, he would experiment with memos in which he offered his observations on what was happening, or what might happen, with stories and trends on the beat. He said he might broaden that, from time to time, with observations on writing about religion -- period.

To which I said, "Amen." -- tmatt

*****

Grumble  if you wish, but in this era of perpetual campaigns it’s nearly time for the usual news media blitz assessing evangelical Protestants’ presidential feelings about the Republicans’ notably God-fearing 2016 list.


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Washington Post team looks at politics in 2014, sees zero folks in pews

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It’s time to set the wayback (actually, it’s WABAC) machine for the year 2003, when editors of The Atlantic Monthly published one of the most famous anecdotal ledes in the recent history of American politics. The article was called “Blue Movie: The “morality gap” is becoming the key variable in American politics” and the essay opened like this:

Early in the 1996 election campaign Dick Morris and Mark Penn, two of Bill Clinton’s advisers, discovered a polling technique that proved to be one of the best ways of determining whether a voter was more likely to choose Clinton or Bob Dole for President. Respondents were asked five questions, four of which tested attitudes toward sex: Do you believe homosexuality is morally wrong? Do you ever personally look at pornography? Would you look down on someone who had an affair while married? Do you believe sex before marriage is morally wrong? The fifth question was whether religion was very important in the voter’s life.

Respondents who took the “liberal” stand on three of the five questions supported Clinton over Dole by a two-to-one ratio; those who took a liberal stand on four or five questions were, not surprisingly, even more likely to support Clinton. The same was true in reverse for those who took a “conservative” stand on three or more of the questions. (Someone taking the liberal position, as pollsters define it, dismisses the idea that homosexuality is morally wrong, admits to looking at pornography, doesn’t look down on a married person having an affair, regards sex before marriage as morally acceptable, and views religion as not a very important part of daily life.) According to Morris and Penn, these questions were better vote predictors — and better indicators of partisan inclination — than anything else except party affiliation or the race of the voter. …


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Capital punishment, abortion and a Catholic politician

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The Washington Post’s front page today featured a long profile focused on the faith and religious underpinnings of former Virginia Gov. — and current U.S. Senate candidate — Tim Kaine.


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